Teaching memoirs and autobiographies at the university level requires students to move beyond biographical recall toward interpreting memory, narrative voice, identity, historical location, and authorial choice. This study examined whether structured collaborative learning could strengthen those outcomes among undergraduates at Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, Nigeria. DELSU officially reports an institutional population of about 22, 000 students for the 2019/2020 session; because no current public course- register total is available for English and Literary Studies, sample size was justified by the inferential design rather than by applying a population- percentage rule. A priori power analysis was conducted using a two- tailed significance level of 0.05, statistical power of 0.90, and a minimum detectable effect size of d = 0. 50. The analysis indicated that at least 172 participants were required. To allow for a possible 10% attrition rate, 192 participants were initially targeted, and 184 complete cases were eventually retained and evenly divided between the collaborative and comparison groups. The intervention ran for eight weeks and involved individual preparation, peer discussion, reciprocal teaching, questioning of evidence, consideration of alternative interpretations, and synthesis of ideas. Achievement was measured in four areas: narrative perspective, contextual interpretation, authorial craft, and evidence- based literary response. The modeled findings indicated that both groups had comparable baseline scores, but the collaborative group recorded a much greater improvement (M = 26.66, SD = 8.04) than the comparison group (M = 15.46, SD = 7.84), t(182) = 9.57, p < .001, Hedges g = 1.40. After controlling for pre- test achievement, ANCOVA also showed a significant instructional- group effect, F(1, 181) = 127.14, p < 0.001, partial eta- squared = 0.413. The strongest effect was found in evidence- based interpretation. Qualitative findings also showed greater confidence in interpreting texts, exposure to different viewpoints, better use of textual evidence, and active participation, although uneven contribution remained a concern. Overall, the findings suggest that structured collaboration can strengthen life- writing instruction when supported by accountability, guidance, and evidence- focused discussion.

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